Dead in the Water

by Nancy Holder

But smash to the bottom and get on with dying.

  Back on deck, Edward Curry, former captain of the Trinity, sprawled on the deck, in the blood, near his reward.

  “Please let me die,” he pleaded. “Please.”

  The captain—the present captain, the one who ruled the waves—sat in his chair in the corner, shrouded by the dark. His hands rubbed the soft wooden armrests, worn down by the centuries of his flesh upon them. A young boy knelt between his legs, nibbling, nibbling fishie, so sweet, so young, his Nathaniel.

  “Please. Use someone else. Please. I can’t stand it anymore, I can’t do it again.” Curry barely moved. But his hand, the captain noted with satisfaction, stretched toward the little sausage afloat on the Sea of Death, meatlet, cutlet of Desire.

  “Harder,” he whispered to the boy, his little cabin boy. Surges of pleasure ran through his cock. Ah, ah, why not let Curry die? The sacrifice had been made. The captain no longer recalled why one was required. He didn’t even know why those words sounded so familiar. Something in him refused to remember; there was much that was blank these days. He sensed he had struggled against something, and prevailed. Something had tried to … to rule him. To make of him a slave …

  … a thousand times a thousand, it had tried … but he was the captain, he was, was, was! It was he who commanded, he who was the god!

  He no longer remembered how he had come to be a god, and to rule the dead of the sea. Nor why it was exactly that all those living, save himself, enraged him so. Why it was such sport to pull them down

  down,

  down, but it was the way of his holiness, his worship, in this temple he had fashioned with his magic.

  Nor why, exactly, everything seemed … renewed, or remade, even he …

  NO!

  No, all was as it should be. All was as he ordered it to be. Life was under his control.

  He knew he needed Curry, until he chose another acolyte to take his place.

  He also knew he would not allow Curry the blessings of immortality. The man was a coward, and the captain would not suffer cowards in his crew.

  “Please, please,” Curry begged. His hand curled around the morsel. The captain kept him hungry; he was easier to dominate that way.

  “It shall be as you desire,” the captain promised the other, vanquished captain as he stroked the head of the little boy, who in turn stroked him. “But not yet,” he added, as Curry’s head jerked up hopefully.

  “Not yet,” and he leaned back in his chair.

  And what had happened to the body of that other young one? As it fell into the hole? Whence that hole?

  Not to ask. The captain’s mind shut hard, watertight, as a black, thirsty fog rolled toward it. He began to shake. Not to ask! Never, never, for he was the captain, he!

  But the power,

  and the glory, and there was a

  there had been a

  “Ah!” he shouted, and strained against the culmination of his ecstasy, of the swell of the tide within him, the galvanic, joyous fury of his power; and as he sweated and shuddered, his mind roved over the waters, and the seafarin’ winds, seeking out the newest ones; and he thought:

  Come aboard, come aboard, me hearties. I shall have you all, I shall take you all, even I shall kill …

  … that bitch …

  “Nathaniel!” As the cabin boy sucked it down

  down,

  down, and the depths were sweet, and the eel of his body slithered into the murk of paradise.

  * * *

  Donna looked at herself in the mirror of her suite. Well, hey howdy, get a load of this. Cinderella is going to the ball.

  A much nicer dress than anything in her absent luggage hugged her waist and hips. Low-slung and red, a real Corvette dress. It was very nice of the captain to authorize some credit on board, and the boutique franchisees had been happy to donate some clothes to the survivors.

  A ghost of a chill kissed the small of her back. Survivors. Answers better be on their way, or she was going to kick some butt but good.

  Well, answers were on their way, officer ma’am. Cool your smokin’ jets. She picked up the cream-colored invitation that reminded her of a graduation announcement.

  At the top of the stiff paper, an anchor.

  Below it, the words, Captain, the Pandora

  A few spaces, and then:

  The Captain respectfully requests the pleasure of your company at the Captain’s Table for dinner this evening.

  Damn straight he’d get the pleasure of her company. It was overdue, to her way of thinking.

  She’d tried to call Ramón to see what the captain had told him—and vice versa—during his debriefing, but the ship’s operator said no one had told her his cabin number. Donna requested an outside line and the operator—with the same style professional bullshit voice as the nurse’s—replied that no one had authorized charges for her room. So Donna had sworn and sputtered and dug out her MasterCard and given her Glenn’s number, and the operator had finally consented to give it a try, only to report that something was wrong with their satellite connection and that they’d have to try later.

  Hell and damn, and back again. You’d think on a boat like this, you’d be able to make a phone call.

  Then a clerk from the boutique had come in with a rack of clothes, which didn’t mollify Donna much but gave her something else to do. The invitation from the captain had arrived shortly after that, and then John and Matt had popped by with their invitation, all excited. Matt had told his father he wanted to write a book about his adventure, which got John thinking about movie deals. Donna was surprised at him; he didn’t seem the greedy, starstruck type, but when he began talking about being able to take off some time from work with the money he’d make, things clicked: he wanted to be there for his son when whatever was wrong with him got worse. Happily enough, though, the boy was looking much, much better.

  “I tried to make some calls, too,” Donna said, frustration creeping back into her voice as she recounted her inability to do so.

  John frowned. “I got through. Reached my housekeeper. No one’s heard anything about us or the Morris. She was shocked. I asked her to keep mum until we learn more from the captain. No sense upsetting everybody.” No, indeed: what if they were the only survivors?

  “Well, I’ll try later. I guess with fiber optics—” She made a gesture with her arm as she realized she didn’t know what the hell she was talking about. She knew about satellites and signals bouncing wrong and like that, though, so it made sense John had lucked out and she hadn’t.

  The doctor came to check her, from stem to stern, which necessitated John’s and Matt’s exit. He asked her about her dizzy spell, and she lied to him and said she felt one hundred percent, and he gave her his permission (gee, thanks, your highness) to leave her stateroom. In truth, she was fagged out; who wouldn’t be after a day and a night on the high sea? But she’d be damned if she’d stay cooped up in bed.

  Then a steward told her it was almost time for cocktails in the captain’s quarters, and if she’d dress, someone would be by to escort her.

  Now a chime rang, followed by a patter of knocks on the lower third of the door. When she opened it, a dark man dressed like a waiter stood aside as Matt tumbled into the stateroom, his father following behind with a stuffed green dinosaur the size of a heart, and a single long-stemmed red rose. Father and son were both dressed in suits and ties, Matt’s with short pants, and Donna felt a bit outclassed. Her duds were a tad casual, maybe.

  John’s eyes widened and he faltered charmingly before saying, “Nice dress.” He looked down at the rose as if he’d just discovered it and held it out to her.

  “For you.”

  “She can have the dinosaur, too,” Matt ventured, staring up at her. “You look like the lady on MTV,” he told her.

  She smiled at her suitors. “Well, gee, thanks.” She took the rose and dinosaur with a little bow. “How keen. I’ll have to put it in water—”

  Somethi
ng mushroomed behind her eyes. Gray filmed over them; she reared backward and dropped the dinosaur as she touched her fingers to her lids.

  “Donna?” John said.

  Tendrils of darker gray waved in front of her fingers. The fog, she thought distractedly, rubbing again. “Jesus, I can’t see a damn thing!”

  Hands grabbed her shoulders. She could feel them but she couldn’t see them. Where someone should have stood, a darker gray swam in front of her. She cried out.

  “Hold your head still.” Frightened, she jerked as John cupped her chin and pried her lid open as far as it would go.

  Cobwebby lines of black and pewter undulating directly in front of her. And a—she tried to focus—a

  “Are you in pain?”

  She shook her head. “No, I … I just can’t see you.”

  —quick quick, a flash, a semidiscernible image—

  “Sit down.” John led her to a chair. She groped like a blind woman.

  “Shall I get the doctor?” asked another voice.

  —an image of a—

  The room flashed back into place. John’s glasses were pressed against the bridge of her nose as he stared into her eye. She blinked hard to clear the tears that were streaming down her cheek.

  “Okay,” she said. “It’s okay now. I can see.” She raised a hand as he continued to stare into her eye.

  Examined her other one, pulling the lid. “Could you see anything? Anything at all?”

  She thought for a moment. What had she thought she’d seen? Or almost seen? She didn’t know.

  She made a gesture. “Gray, wavy lines.”

  His face took on a distanced, thoughtful expression. Processing the medical computer. And from his look, either coming up with nothing or something he didn’t want to share.

  “Should I call Dr. Hare?” The voice belonged to the steward.

  Donna shook her head. “I’ll see him later.” John’s lips parted in protest. She raised her chin a notch and said, “I’ll see him later.”

  “You blacked out earlier,” he said gently.

  “I just spent twenty-four hours in a lifeboat, too.” She eased him away. He rocked back on his heels and stood.

  “I really think—”

  “MYOB, John,” she snapped. She looked past him to Matt, who had picked up the dinosaur. The rose, too. His eyes were huge.

  “I’m okay,” she assured the two of them, softening.

  “That happened to me once,” Matt murmured, still staring at her.

  John flushed, muttered, “During chemo.”

  Donna said, “I think you’d better hang on to that dinosaur for me, okay? I’ll go put the rose in some water.”

  Water. What she had almost seen had had something to do with water. Or something in water. Something shiny. Something green.

  Something borrowed, something blue. Let it go for now, Donna. It was probably stress.

  “Ma’am?” The steward held his hand out for the rose and carried it into her bathroom. He turned on the tap. Donna picked up her purse and room key from the end of the bed.

  “I’m fine,” she huffed at John.

  The steward returned with the rose, clipped to a stubby-stemmed blossom in a drinking glass. He set it by her bed, turned, and made a little bow.

  “I’m Adalberto, your cabin steward.” He smelled of heavy, musky after-shave and his hair was oiled. His nails stabbed a quarter of an inch above the ends of his fingers, like a cheap hood in an old gangster movie. “If you’re ready, I’ll escort you to the captain’s quarters.”

  John held out his arm to Donna. “You insist?”

  “I insist.”

  He sighed.

  “Lighten up,” she chided, then put her arm around his to soften her tone.

  They moved toward the door. “By the way, have you heard anything?” she asked. Matt nonchalantly circled around to her other side.

  John shook his head. “Not a damn thing.” Lowered his voice. “I keep wondering about Kevin. And Cha-cha.” He glanced down at Matt, who held the dinosaur in his arms. He was pretending not to listen, but Donna knew people pretty well. Chemo. Oh, dear God, the little guy had cancer.

  “Wait’ll you see the ship,” John said in a different tone. “It’s fabulous.”

  They went out of the room. The hall stretched before them like an endless fun-house corridor, so long it dipped in the middle. The carpet was a wavy pattern of blue and black and green, a vague sea-life motif, with dots of darker blue that resembled fish in a Rorschach kind of way. The walls were white, and light fixtures that looked like hurricane lamps glowed starkly and rippled between their footfalls on the carpet. Shadow and light, the carpet swayed and the fish darted behind ropy ladders of seaweed. Donna looked up; the illusion made her queasy. What if something was really wrong with her? She cast a wary glance at Matt. Something like that?

  “We’re reading Hansel and Gretel,” Matt told her as he walked beside her.

  “Really?”

  “Yeah.” He nodded earnestly. “But my dad fell asleep before we got to the good part.”

  “Good being synonymous with gross,” John added dryly, rolling his eyes.

  “When the witch is gonna eat them.”

  Donna raised and lowered her brows. “The dark side of childhood.”

  “Yes.” He leered at her. “And some of us never grow up.”

  Behind them, the steward made a noise. They turned; he dropped his gaze to his hands and murmured, “Please turn left up here.”

  “Hard a port,” Donna said, executing a military-style turn. Giggling, Matt imitated her.

  They came to the foyer of the ship. Potted palms fanned silhouettes onto the walls, where silhouettes of black creatures, half horse, half sea serpent, coiled and reared at teardrop chandeliers. Inlays of blood-dark wood trimmed with brass paneled the registration desk and purser’s office in a panorama of maritime vessels that began with a crude raft, paraded through galleys and medieval ships, to the sailing ships of different ages, and finished up with what had to be the Pandora herself. The scenes were bordered with crushed-glass mosaics of mermaids frolicking with dolphins and whales.

  “Wow,” Donna said. “How … busy.”

  A man seated in a white chair looked up from his newspaper and smiled at them. Across the room, a woman turned and pointed, spoke to her companion, a Japanese man. A third person joined them, dressed in the Pandora’s staff uniform. Looks and murmurs ricocheted through the room like the Wave at a baseball game.

  “They must be going for art deco.” John gestured toward the chandeliers. “Those are wrong, but everything else could’ve been on an old thirties ocean liner. The furniture in our rooms, too. All the lacquer.” He looked embarrassed. “My …” A furtive glance at his son. “My wife was an interior decorator.”

  Oh, no, was she dead? Donna filed the question away. Wife dead, son half-dead?

  How could she be so glib?

  “So, this is like an old ocean liner?” she said, to cancel out her bad thought. “Like the Titanic?”

  John smiled. “The Titanic was earlier. Though you could’ve found those chandeliers on the Titanic.”

  “Maybe they got a deal on them,” she said.

  “The captain picked those out himself,” the steward observed frostily.

  Donna grinned behind her hand. “They let him help decorate? I guess he was pretty sure he’d have the job for a while.”

  The steward’s smile got nowhere near his eyes. “Oh, yes, ma’am. Pretty sure.” He held out a hand in a bullfighter gesture and everyone swung right, toward a quartet of elevators.

  “Oh, Cha-cha has to see this,” Donna said.

  Lacquered on the face of each door, ol’ King Neptune sat on a throne of shells. He was magnificent, steady-eyed, barrel chest thrust out, trident in hand. A coronet radiated beams of light and his beard and hair streamed in the sea air.

  “He’s got a crown like the Statue of Liberty,” Matt said. Donna and John chuckled.
/>   The elevator doors opened without a sound and the group stepped in. The walls were covered with the same pattern as the carpet. The ceiling was mirrored; Donna could see straight down the front of her dress. Casually, she covered her chest with her arms.

  The steward stood at parade rest with his hands folded over his belt, watching the numbers. Twelve decks. Donna wondered if there were actually thirteen. That happened in hotels. Got damned confusing when you were trying to answer a call.

  “Have you heard anything about the ship we were on?” she asked the steward. “We’re very concerned about it.”

  “No, ma’am.” The steward unfolded his hands and licked his lips. Stood straight-shouldered, like a soldier.

  The doors opened. On the other side of the corridor, another lacquer portrait covered a door, this one of Neptune in profile, riding a sea serpent. He looked fierce, godlike, and Donna hoped he was on Cha-cha’s side, and that the two of them were off somewhere safe, having a great conversation.

  They waited while the steward tugged at his white jacket, cleared his throat, and rapped on the door.

  “Donna? John?”

  Phil van Buren’s voice. The door opened and he smiled at them and jerked his head for them to come in. In a fluid motion, the steward disengaged and glided down the corridor.

  John stood aside for Donna. Elise van Buren-Hadley lounged on a plaid sofa in a tight black dress that had to be silk. Her blond hair was up and she had on serious gold jewelry. Phil wore a dark blue suit.

  After the grandeur of the main hall, the room was unremarkable. The only interesting item was a large model of a fully rigged sailing ship encased in a bottle. It sat on an ornate stand on a coffee table. A brass plaque placed across the legs of the stand read “H.M.S. Royal Grace, 1792–1799.”

  “Cool.” Matt peered at it. “This one’s real. Not like the Morris.”

  “Yes,” John murmured. He had to be thinking what she was: that that hideous decoration in the Morris’s dining room might now lie at the bottom of the ocean.

  Donna glanced around. In the corner at a wet bar a steward stood deferentially, surrounded by liquor bottles of every description.

  “Where’s the captain?” she asked, making for the bar. The bartender inclined his head.